Effectively participating in an exhibition: 10 steps

A beautiful stand with an eye for detail is a nice start, but no more than that. Participation in the exhibition is more than ‘being present’ with a nice stand. The next 10 steps everyone should go through to participate effectively in an exhibition.

1. Making a plan

When you make a plan, you always have something to be able to fall back on when you lose sight of the bigger picture. Prepare a plan in advance with objectives, activities and preparations.

2. Set your goals

You’re at this exhibition for a reason. You want to achieve something with this. Make sure you set specific goals and write them down in your plan. That way you’ll know exactly what you have to do and what you want to achieve when it’s all over.

3. Determine your target group

An exhibition has got different kinds of visitors. Which visitors are part of the target group and which are not. Make sure you know which people are in your target group and make sure that they know you’re there even before the fair starts. A good platform to make this clear isfor example social media.

4. Inviting existing clients

Invite existing customers to visit you at the exhibition. They will automatically show other visitors that they are satisfied with you. It is also a great opportunity to talk to your customers again.

5. What’s being expected of you?

Always determine what your target group wants to see, what their interests are and what you can do to make your target group enthousiastic. Try to respond optimally to this. In addition, try to find out how your competition does this to prevent you from going the same way.

6. Set clear targets

Provide a clear description of targets that are realistic and feasible. When you know how many leads you could earn on a trading day, you also know what you are there for. This also gives you the opportunity to make things measurable.

7. Calculate the possible impacy

A lot of companies are rather light-hearted about a stock exchange and this is often at the expense of the results. Calculate what the impact of the exhibition can be. Does the exhibition take five days of six hours each and you have four employees present at your stand? Then you have a range of 120 hours. When every employee can make 1 appointment per 15 minutes, it means that you can have 480 conversations.

8. think of a way to follow up

Make sure you think of a way to follow up beforehand. The follow-up is extremely important. A total of 480 conversations is very good, but if you don’t follow these conversations up, it was not worth anything. Make this clear so you can already tell the prospects at the exhibition.

9. Train your employees

Once you have decided which employees you want to participate in the exhibition with you, Make sure they know what they have to do. They must be optimally informed about the service or the product and the company.

10. Evaluation

Make sure you evaluate afterwards. Which goals have been achieved and which ones not? What could have been done better and what should have been done better? Include these points in the plan for the next exhibition participation.

Professional support

The exhibition and activation are closely linked. Do you want to be advised or are you interested in our possibilities as a specialist in brand activation? Feel free to contact our team.